


Bad Magic

by TherapyBard



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, POV Caleb Widogast, POV Nott | Veth Brenatto, Past Child Abuse, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28035504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TherapyBard/pseuds/TherapyBard
Summary: They knew that Magic in Eiselcross could go wrong, particularly when it involved teleportation. Their first encounter with this leads the group to lose an underrated ally.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast, Caduceus Clay & Caleb Widogast, Fjord & Caleb Widogast, Frumpkin & Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre & Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre & Nott | Veth Brenatto, Nott | Veth Brenatto & Caleb Widogast
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942036
Comments: 4
Kudos: 58
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Bad Magic

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Trent's training is mentioned but not in any detail. That's about it  
> This is for the Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt Came Back Wrong. Thank you Doctor_Incubus for inspiring this. See their full prompt in the notes at the end of the fic.

At this point, Caleb was ready to see anything in the snowy planes of Eiselcross. After a necromantic crystal and status that steal years off someone’s life, what could possibly surprise him? Certainly not a small platform floating a few feet in the air. From where the group stood, it seemed to be just about large enough for one of them to stand on.

“What should we do?” Fjord asked.

“What we always do.” Caleb snapped his fingers to summon Frumpkin.

The cat ran towards the platform and hopped on top. Caleb grabbed Caduceus’ shoulder so he could go into Frumpkin-vision, as Jester liked to call it. The platform had a series of five buttons arranged in a line. He couldn’t see any sort of markings to indicate what they did. He conveyed this to the others and asked Caduceus to tap him on the shoulder if they had any objections to him pressing a button.

When 30 seconds passed with no tap, Caleb had Frumpkin press the center button. He was immediately thrown back into his own body. He closed his eyes and raised his arms to shield himself from the overwhelming heat that came from in front of them. His ears rang as he moved to put his hands over them.

Sound soon came back to him. He opened his eyes and saw Veth kneeling in front of him. ‘Kneeling? What...’ The rest of his senses returned. He was laying on the ground in the snow, half against someone else. He was too out of it to check.

“Are you okay?” Veth asked. “The platform exploded and you freaked out. What happened?”

Caleb looked past her to where the platform used to be. No sign of it remained besides a new puddle of melted snow. “Is Frumpkin gone?”

Veth nodded. “It blew up with Frumpkin on it.”

The person behind him helped him sit up. He could now see that it was Caduceus. “Is this because you were in Frumpkin when it happened?” Caduceus asked.

“Possibly, I have never been seeing through Frumpkin as he died before now.” He shook his head to clear the fog and accepted Yasha’s hand in getting up. He looked around at the rest of the group, all staring at him with concern. “No need to stop for the day on my account. I’m well enough to carry on.”

Dagen, who’d stayed a good fifty feet behind the group, rolled over to them once it was clear they were done messing around. “Sorry ‘bout your cat.”

“Oh, no need to worry.” Caleb glanced back over at the melted snow. “He can always come back.”

* * *

Veth went down to the library to say goodnight to Caleb and found him doing the virtual to summon Frumpkin. She sat quietly on one of the couches until he finished. Soon, the familiar Bengal cat appeared in front of them. “Yay!” Veth got up to scratch Frumpkin behind his ear.

“Oh? When did you come down here?” Caleb asked. He began packing up his materials.

“I wanted to say goodnight and see Frumpkin.” Frumpkin climbed onto Veth and curled up in her lap.

“Well, it seems he also wants to see you. How about he stays with you tonight?”

“What? Really?” She had gotten used to Caleb keeping Frumpkin by his side after he resummoned him.

“I don’t see any reason why not. Just promise not to eat him. I would rather not need to use more materials until we know we will be able to buy more soon.” He gave Frumkin a kiss on his little forehead before standing up. “I would tell you to be a good boy for Veth, but we both know you always are.”

Veth watched him as he left for his room. She’d noticed long ago that Caleb never spoke to Frumpkin as most do to their pets. He never used a baby voice, or talked down to the little guy. He treated Frumpkin as an individual. Perhaps that was just how all wizards treat their familiars? She would have to ask Caleb someday.

Veth put Frumpkin on the ground next to her and stood up. “Come on. Let’s go get some sleep.” She walked to her room, Frumpkin trailing close behind.

* * *

A sharp pain in her cheek woke Veth from her sleep. She opened her eyes to see Frumpkin on her chest, sharp claws ready to swipe at her again. She instinctively pushed the cat off of her. “What are you doing!?” She wiped where Frumpkin had scratched her. Her fingers came back with blood. He growled before hopping on the bed one more. He looked feral, nothing like the sweet obedient familiar she knew. She threw a pillow at him, reluctant to do any actual damage. ‘Maybe Caleb knows what to do.’

She ran out of her room to Caleb’s, armed with her pillow. She screamed Caleb’s name - ‘why does he keep his room locked?’ - while fighting off the vicious Frumpkin. His claws dug into her legs. She resisted the urge to stomp him, not wanting to kill him by accident.

“Veth! What’s-” Veth couldn’t turn around to see Caleb, busy trying to block Frumpkin. He snapped his fingers. The cat’s attacks continued. “Frumpkin, stop!” He grabbed Frumpkin the next he tried to jump on Veth. He lashed out at Caleb, claw digging into his arm. Caleb threw his familiar against the wall. He disappeared the second he made impact.

Beau, Fjord, and Jester rose from the level below theirs. “We heard screaming. What’s happening?” Beau asked. Veth put her pillow down. Caleb continued to stare at the wall.

“Frumpkin attacked me when I was sleeping,” Veth said.

Jester gasped. “What? Why?” She put a hand on Veth's head and used a healing spell. The pain from the cuts subsided.

“I don’t know, but Caleb couldn’t get him to stop.”

Beau snapped her fingers in Caleb’s face. “Hey, you okay?”

“Um… Ja, I am fine.” He turned around to look at Veth. “Are you alright? I promise I did not ask him to do that.”

“Of course. I know you wouldn’t do that. Has Frumpkin ever not listened to you before?”

“No, I have no idea what happened.”

“What if it was the weird magic thing?” Fjord asked. “I know it mostly messes with teleportation magic, but didn’t they say it can also affect other things?”

“I suppose that makes sense…” Caleb looked over at the wall again before his eyes gravitated towards the ground. “Now I fear for my actual cat.”

“Aw.” Jester gave him a hug. “I’m sure he’s fine. We’ll summon him again when we get back.”

“Yes, I… I hope so.” Caleb awkwardly returned the hug.

They each pulled away after a few moments. Veth couldn’t ignore the sad, almost desperate, look on Caleb’s face, as if a close friend was in danger and he could do nothing to help.

Beau must have seen it too, because she asked, “How long have you had Frumpkin?”

“I’ve had him since, ah, since I was… training.” Everyone tensed at the word training. “Familiars were supposed to be tools, not pets. Still, I found myself… growing attached. I would summon him in secret and named him after my childhood pet. A reminder of similar times, I suppose.” He laughed dryly. “There aren’t many of those left.”

Fjord patted him on the shoulder. “Well, like Jester said, we’ll do what we need to do here as quick as we can before heading back down and getting Frumpkin back.”

“Or we could just do it now,” Veth said. “I mean, what are the chances of the same spell going wrong twice?”

“It is a teleportation spell in a way, taking Frumpkin from the Fae Wild and bringing him here. That could be why,” Caleb said. “Either way, I would not want to risk hurting any of you. I’m not sure how strong not Frumpkin could potentially be.”

“That’s probably the right call, though it really does suck,” Beau said. “Do you, I don’t know, need anything else right now? As much as I’d love to stay up and let you talk through your feelings, we really do need to sleep if we want to be on our game tomorrow.”

“Beau!” Jester glared at her.

“No, she’s right. I have been keeping you up. If we wish to finish what we’ve come here to accomplish as soon as possible, we need to sleep.”

The others wished the two of them goodnight before returning to their rooms. Caleb put a hand on his door knob. “Wait!” Veth said. “Why don’t I go in there with you? For old times sake?”

Caleb smiled at her. “Ja, that would be good. Thank you.”

The two of them curled up in Caleb’s bed. Veth slept at the end. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking about all the years Caleb spent on his own with Frumpkin as his only companion. He was all alone, hurt and scared. She sometimes forgot how long he spent paranoid and hunted, feeling as if the whole world was against him.

‘That’s over now,’ she thought. ‘He’s with us and he’s much safer and happier. He’ll have Frumpkin again soon and everything will be okay. It’ll have to be.’

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I know this one is short and pretty tame, but I'm really busy right now and wanted to get something out. I wish I could promise another fic this year, but alas I have a couple of Secret Santa things to write for another fandom as well as other projects I'm working on.  
> Since this kinda became a big thing on Twitter, I want to give my take on the Fjord/Jester thing. First of all, anyone harassing the players is wrong automatically. They are giving us free content (unless you decide to give them money) and making a ship you don't like canon is far from immoral. Second, as someone that shipped Jester/Caleb and really isn't a fan of Fjord/Jester, I'm completely okay with this. As a matter of fact, my first thought upon seeing this was "good, now I can ship Caleb and Essek" because my brain is weird like that. I could also ship Fjord/Jester/Caleb, but the chances of critical role doing a polyship is basically zero and I'm not putting my emotional energy into that. If you want to, have fun. Still ship Caleb/Jester. Just don't be a jerk about it.  
> Full Prompt from Doctor_Incubus: The first thing I thought of was sprinkle because everyone’s always joking that he’s undead anyway. But what about Frumpkin?? Frumpkin literally comes back from the dead all the time!! What if something was a bit off for some reason??


End file.
